The New Zealand government has joined others around the world in paying tribute to the Polish president, who has died along with senior officials in a plane crash in Russia.
The plane on which the president, Lech Kaczynski, the country's military chief, its central bank head and more than 90 other people were travelling crashed on approach to Smolensk airport in foggy weather on Saturday.
Acting Prime Minister Bill English described the loss as a tragedy for Poland, and said some on board the plane were known to New Zealanders.
"Some of the officials who were killed in this air accident were people that the New Zealand Government worked with over celebrations and book publications with respect to the Polish orphans who came here after the Second World War."
More than 700 Polish orphans arrived in New Zealand in 1944, taking up residence at a camp in Pahiatua.
The Polish community gathered at the church of St Martin de Porres in Wellington on Sunday morning to commemorate the Katyn massacre, and also to honour those who died in the plane crash.
The Polish president and his party were due to attend a memorial service to mark the 70th anniversary of the massacre, in which Soviet troops killed thousands of Poles.
New Zealand's Polish Ambassador Beata Stoczynska asked for prayers for, and solidarity with, the Polish nation.
She says the government and the whole nation is in shock.
She says the Polish Embassy is preparing a condolence book.
New Zealand Polish Association president Eric Lepionka says the Polish people are devastated by the deaths.
"So many people, leaders right across the spectrum of Polish society, were represented in that air crash," he said.
Mr Lepionka says Mr Kaczynski was a hero of the Solidarity movement, which opposed Communist rule in Poland.
